How loose and easy hence to go!
How girt and ready to ascend!—
Moving but on a point below,
In all about does upward bend.
How quaintly, yet how exquisitely, in these lines has the old poet Marvell portrayed those who, in the world, are yet not of the world! How few, alas! can read their own description in that of the pure bright dew-drop! How many, instead of resting even on the flower, “loose and easy hence to go,” waiting till the warm sun “exhales it back again,” have dropped from leaf to leaf, lower and lower, till, sinking at length to earth, and mingling with its dust, they are lost for evermore!
About a week after her arrival in Belgrave Square we will glance again at Clemence Effingham. She is in her husband’s quiet study—her favourite retreat. The ruddy fire-light falls cheerfully on the shelves of the well-filled book-case, which occupies almost an entire side of the small but comfortable apartment. Cheerfully glances that light on the expansive brow and handsome features of Mr. Effingham, cheerfully on the locks of shaded gold of her who sits at his feet. Clemence, still girlish in manner, and glad to throw off for a brief space the wearisome formality of etiquette, has seated herself on a low footstool, and, resting her clasped hands on her husband’s knee, is looking up into his face with a look of earnest inquiry.
“You see, my Vincent, that all is so new to me,—I am so fearful of making mistakes, so conscious of my own inexperience. You must guide and assist me, dearest. Ever since you told me what large sums—to me they seem startling sums—are constantly passing through Mrs. Ventner’s hands, I cannot help imagining that there must be strange waste in some quarter.”
“There always is waste in a large establishment; there is no necessity that we should mark the expenditure of every shilling, or enter into the details of every domestic arrangement.”
“But supposing that there should be something even worse than waste,” asked Clemence in a tone of hesitation, “ought we to place temptations in the way of those who serve us, by exercising no watchfulness over them, by placing such unbounded confidence in them as may be, as is sometimes, abused?”